A Message from Wendy and Bill: New
Year’s Resolutions

Happy
New Year! January, a time of resolutions and new beginnings, is a wonderful
time to begin planning your upcoming race season. Whether your goals focus on
conquering your weakest segment in the sport, placing higher in your race
category, or moving up to a longer distance event, be sure to include goals
that support your original reasons for doing the sport—to stay healthy and have
fun.

At
F.I.R.M., our new year’s resolutions center on offering a wonderful race series
that helps area triathletes meet their goals in a fun and supportive
environment. And we plan to enjoy ourselves tremendously while doing it.

Here are just some of the highlights
for 2012

Extensive race calendar including sprint, Olympic distance,
and half ironman distance triathlons, pool swim triathlons, duathlons, and 5ks
at some of the best race venues in New England.

FREE race--Race five F.I.R.M. triathlons/duathlons in 2012
and get a free sprint triathlon or duathlon in 2012.

FREE entry--Register yourself and four of your buddies for one
F.I.R.M. event, and receive a complimentary entry in that same event.

$10,000 cash and prizes at FirmMan Rhode Island

Reasonable entry fees for all race categories including the
relay division

TWO sweet Quintana Roo triathlon bikes as the grand prizes
in the F.I.R.M. Race Series Sweepstakes

Ask a Tri Coach—Email access to a USA Triathlon Certified
Coach to answer your specific triathlon questions. Email questions to info@mpstraining.com and include 'Ask a Tri Coach' in the subject line.

Tis
the Season to Lose Body Fat

By Elaine Vescio, USA Triathlon
Certified Coach with Vmps

While
it may add buoyancy and keep you a little warmer during cold open water swims,
excess body fat slows you down in races. If you want to improve your triathlon
results in 2012 (and put the hurt on your training buddies) lose excess body
fat now.

The
reason I say ‘now’ is because losing weight is stressful on your body. You want
to avoid combining the stress of weight loss with the stress of your more intense,
in-season training and racing, otherwise you may end up with poorer workouts,
impaired recovery, and disappointing race results.

So
how to go about losing body fat? Well, there are a slew of diets out there with
a variety of ‘benefits’ according to their advocates. There are diets that assuage
metabolic inadequacies, speed up your metabolism, teach your body to preserve
glycogen and use fat for fuel, allow you to lose weight without feeling hungry,
and avoid sugary highs. Many of these diets are unnecessarily restrictive or
complicated; most are based on pieces of scientific research and anecdotes. In
the more than two decades since I studied Human Nutrition at the University of
Massachusetts, I have seen plenty of diets come and go, and well come and go
again. Yet one simple equation that has never stopped working often gets
ignored.

Calories Out > Calories In = Weight Loss

Eat
fewer calories than you burn in your daily activities and workouts if you want
to lose weight. To better fuel your body and promote overall health, you should
base your food choices on nutritious foods—whole grains, vegetables, fruits,
lean proteins, lean dairy, and nuts. Sounds a tad too simple, right? The
science of weight loss is remarkably simple; the challenge is maintaining the
discipline to make better food choices over the long term.

For
quite a few years, I have been helping triathletes apply the same determination
that they use in their training and racing to make the dietary changes needed
to reach their race weight and to better fuel their training and racing. Here
are ten tips I have found to be effective for most people.

10 Tips for Triathletes Looking to
Lose Body Fat

Log all food, drink, and exercise in a nutrition software
application that tabulates calories, fat, carbohydrates, and protein, and
provides a nutrient profile of the diet over a specified period of time. Yes.
It is a pain to track everything, but it makes you more cognizant of what you
are taking in and how well you are (or aren’t) fueling your body.

Weigh yourself once a week on the same scale and at the same
time of day. Track your weight in your nutrition software application. This way
you can determine if you need to make additional adjustments to your diet to
achieve your weight loss goals.

Establish long term goals and interim objectives. For
example, goal--lose 10 pounds by April; weekly objective--lose 1 pound each
week.

Plan your tactics for reaching your goals and objectives.
For example, decrease calorie intake by 500 calories a day or no eating after
dinner.

Be accountable to someone with your weight loss efforts--a
coworker, diet group, nutritionist, or coach can help you stay on track when
the novelty wears off. A significant other or friend can be helpful in this
role if they are trying to lose weight too, otherwise they may look the other
way if you start to falter in your efforts to lose weight.

Expect that you will feel hungry at times. When you are in
negative calorie balance, your body will send signals that you should
eat—growling stomach, slightly light headed. This is nature’s way of trying to
keep you from starving to death. It’s normal, so have a plan on how to deal
with it such as eating a low calorie snack, drinking water, or keeping busy
with work or housework.

Immediately get back on track if you over indulge rather
than deciding that the day is blown and you will start anew in the morning.

You may not be able to adequately fuel your workouts if you
are training a lot while in negative calorie balance. It’s simple math. You
need a certain number of grams of carbohydrate, protein, and fat to adequately
fuel your body. If you need to restrict calories to lose weight, it may be
impossible to get in adequate amounts of these macronutrients. That’s why it is
better to avoid dieting during the race season, and it is extremely important
to make nutritious food choices given the calorie limitations.

Use sports drinks, energy gels, and recovery
drinks immediately before, during, and immediately after workouts as a way to
try to offset the macronutrient (carbohydrate, protein) deficit described in #8. Usage before and during workouts helps
to minimize reliance on glycogen stores for fuel; usage immediately after helps to take advantage of the limited window following workouts when your body is most efficient at restoring glycogen levels.

View losing excess body fat as an essential component of your triathlon training. Small decreases in body fat can result in big improvements in race splits and can decrease the likelihood of injury.

As you plan for your race season, consider whether losing body fat would help you reach your triathlon goals in 2012. If the answer is ‘yes’, then try incorporating the ten tips listed above in your efforts and find out for yourself that the simple weight loss equation listed earlier in this article really does hold true.

Vmps Biggest Loser Contest

Sometimes You Got to Lose to Win!

Check
out this fun way to stay motivated in your quest to achieve your weight loss
goals.

Smart Swimming This Winter

Smart
swimming this winter can transform you into a stronger and more confident open
water swimmer for the triathlon season. The goal of this article is to help you
plan your winter swim training. First we'll take a look at the most common swim
training mistakes made by triathletes, and then we'll cover the smart way to
swim this winter.

Top Three Swim Training Mistakes

(1)
Too many drills

(2)
Too much slow steady paced swimming

(3)
Too many master's swim sessions

Doing
too many drills leads to slow, drill-like swimming, and does very little for
developing your aerobic or anaerobic systems for swimming. There are those who
promote the notion that some type of horrendous neural memory will become
imprinted in your brain if you swim imperfectly. Don't worry; it won't happen.
The really fast swimmers got fast by swimming fast, not by endlessly doing
drills.

The
next mistake is endlessly swimming slow, steady laps. You will remain a slow
swimmer, and will most likely get breathless and somewhat freaked out during
the swim starts of triathlons if all you do is slow, steady swimming in the
pool.

And
the final mistake is relying on traditional master's swim programs to get you
faster. These programs work well for triathletes who were competitive swimmers
in high school or college; these athletes tend to have good swim form. Most
masters swim programs don't provide enough work on form and mechanics to help a
person without a competitive swim background improve his/her stroke or swim
form.

So What Should a Triathlete Do?

Work
on form and speed. This time of year each of your swim workouts should include
drills in the earlier part of the workout and fast intervals in the latter part
of the workout. Include at least one workout each week where the drills take up
more than 50% of the workout time, and at least one workout each week where the
drills take up about 25% of the workout time. The non-drill part of the workout
should consist of fast intervals with a brief rest in between each interval.

Examples of Two Useful Swim Drills

Hand-Lead
Side Balance Drill teaches you to balance on your side while swimming instead
of swimming with your body flat on the water, and how to lengthen your body in
the water.

Lie
on your side with your belly button facing the pool's wall, your lower arm
extended in front of you under the water, your other arm flat against the side
of your body, and your face either to the side or in the water. Use a flutter
kick to move your body through the water and press with your lower arm to raise
your hips so that your upper foot is barely breaking the surface. When you
reach the other side of the pool, swim the next 25 yards on your other side.
Focus on balance and elongating your body throughout the drill.

Underwater
Switch Drill teaches compact swimming and the correct timing for one arm to
initiate the pull while the other arm recovers to the front. The recovery for
this drill is done under water.

Begin
with the Hand-Lead Side Balance Drill with your face in the water. Sneak the
top arm along the side of your body to the front keeping it close to your body.
When you see your palm in front of your nose, spear that recovering arm to the
front. At the same time, initiate the pull with the opposite arm and push the
hand back until it reaches your hip. As you spear the recovering arm, roll your
body all at once so that you are back to the original position, but on your
other side.

3
x 200 yards done as 100 yards at a strong pace, 50 yards at a medium strong
pace with a focus on form, final 50 yards fast (15 seconds rest after each 200
yard interval)

For
additional help with adding form and speed to your winter swim training, check
out the Vmps Power Swimming Program, coached swim workouts that incorporate this training
philosophy. So change up your swimming this winter with a focus on form and
speed. Then reap the benefits of being a stronger, more confident swimmer next
triathlon season.

Vmps Power Swimming

These
coached swim workouts are designed to help you become a stronger, more
efficient swimmer. One class emphasizes improving swim form; the other
emphasizes improving swim endurance and speed. Choose the class you need most
or take both to really fly.

Registration is Open

Registration
for most of your favorite FIRM races is open. Remember to sign up early for the
Sudbury Sprint Triathlon and the Littleton Appleman Triathlon as those races
sell out quickly. You spoke, we listened….based on feedback from our athletes,
we returned our Holliston Triathlon to its original distances—0.5 mile swim, 15
mile bike, and 5 mile run.

Win a Quintana Roo Triathlon Bike

We
are pleased to announce that two lucky participants in the 2012 FIRM Race
Series will win a new Quintana Roo triathlon bike. That’s right, two winners!
Quintana Roo, the official bicycle sponsor for the 2012 FIRM Race series, has
donated a new QR Seduza
triathlon bike (MSRP $2,299) for one lucky gentleman to win, and a new QR Dulce triathlon
bike (MSRP $2,099) for one lucky woman to win. So don’t despair if Santa didn’t
leave a little something with two wheels, aerobars, and Shimano components
under the tree. Thanks to Quintana Roo, you just might win one this season
without having to be good all year long.

A Basic Training Log

By
Don Vescio, Certified USA Cycling Coach with Vmps

There is a lot of software and publications that enable athletes to
track their training information. Over the years, I found that:

Many
athletes initially are too ambitious and attempt to capture a
significant amount of data for each training session, only to have their
logs fall out of date because they are too complex or time intensive to
maintain on a regular basis.

Even when data is
collected, it seldom is reviewed with any regularity or consistency in
approach; while there may be a lot of valuable information recorded, it
is not used to assess performance and evaluate future schedules.

What
I've suggested to many athletes over the years is that it's better to
keep a simple, consistent record of their training in a format that is
not burdensome to use. What follows is a checklist of items that one
might want to include in a simple daily training log.

Data Collection

Collect the
following information in your training diary.Use a spreadsheet’s graphing function to make it easier to see emerging
patterns.Items with an asterisk are
optional.

7.Training Stress Score: product of
time of session and average heart rate (tss=time * avg hr)

8.Perceived Effort (see graphic below)

9.Brief notes/comments

10. *Advanced Training Stress Score: (for those looking for more granularity in their data)

atss=(time*avg hr*perceived exertion)/100

Perceived Exertion

Probably
one of the most useful ways to gauge the intensity associated with a
training session or race is to record one's perceived exertion, which is
a relatively subjective assessment of how one felt during exercise.
Use the following modified Gunnar Borg Scale to
record the intensity levels of your training sessions and races. Over
time, variances in evaluation will normalize to a personal standard that
will remain consistent throughout the season, and from year-to-year.

Level

Effort

10

Maximal: Almost impossible to continue; completely out of breath; unable to talk

8-9

Extremely Strong: Very difficult to maintain exercise intensity; can barely breath and speak a single word

6-7

Very Strong: On the verge of becoming uncomfortable; short of breath; can speak a sentence

5

Strong: Heavy breathing; conversation punctuated by gasps

3-4

Moderate: Moderately heavy breathing; can hold short conversation

2

Light: Can exercise for hours; relatively easy to breath, can hold a conversation

1

Very Light: Basic movement and activity

A Sample Log Entry (click image to enlarge)

What Do The Data Mean?

On
December 15, I slept a total of 6.5 hours and my waking pulse was 36
BPM. I monitor my waking pulse for variations--if there is a
significant spike in my waking pulse, I assess whether I am on the onset
of an illness or whether I might be fatigued. If the spike continues
for more than a couple of days, I may consider adjusting my training
sessions, either decreasing their intensity or their overall duration to
assist in recovery. Similarly, I track body weight on a weekly basis
to see if there are any emerging patterns that might necessitate
attention. Rapid weight loss is a potential flag for over-training,
among other possible issues.

My
Workout Session column contains my planned workouts. In this example,
my planned workout is to do three big gear, low cadence (~50-60 rpm)
intervals, each of which is nine minutes in duration. The Comments
field confirms whether I completed my workout as planned, along with any
additional notes.

The data
fields contains the duration of my workout session in minutes (I
generally round to the nearest five minute interval), my average heart
rate for the session, and my perceived exertion. TSS refers to the
stress, or intensity of the session. The simplest way to obtain this
value is to multiple session time by average heart rate, which will
provide a basic measure of exercise intensity over time. I like a
little more granularity in my training data, so I record an advanced
training stress score (see item ten, above). Advanced training stress
is the product of session time, average heart rate, and perceived
exertion. In order to make this number more manageable, I divided this
product by 100.

Acute and Chronic Training StressWhile
factoring in perceived exertion into TRIMP calculations (whether the
TRIMP calculations are based on HR values or wattage values) does a
pretty good job in getting an accurate sense of the intensity of a
specific training session, it only provides insight into a specific
point in time.Athletes tend to forget that the effect of training is cumulative, which can lead to exhaustion and over-training.

There are two different types of training stresses that we need to consider: acute and chronic.Think of acute training stress as the short-term impact of a training session.For
instance, we know from practical experience that we will be tired the
day after an interval session, so we try to build in easier workouts
between intense workouts to facilitate recovery.Similarly,
chronic training stress should be regarded as the cumulative effect
that training has on use over an extended period of time.For
instance, most good training programs will be based on a pattern of
relatively intense of training cycles that might extend over a period of
a month or two, followed by one to two weeks of light activity, again
to facilitate recovery.

Putting It All TogetherSuccessful
coaches and athletes consider the following variables when developing
and updating weekly, monthly, and annual training plans:

The duration of training sessions

The physiological stresses of training sessions

The short-term (seven day rolling average) acute physiological stresses of a training program

The long-term (say, forty day rolling average) chronic physiological stresses of a training program

For
multisport athletes, it is critical that metrics are used to do
like-kind assessment within specific sport sessions, as well as metrics
that can assess the overall impact of multiple sport training session.What is important to keep in mind is that whatever method being used to calculate session stress should
be considered over short and long-term horizons and that individual
session scores have value only when taken in aggregate.The easiest way to see emerging patterns is to graph acute and chronic training stress over time:

The chart above tracks both my acute (blue) and chronic (red) training stress for the months of November and December, 2011Note
the significant variations in intensity as signified by the peaks and
valleys described by the blue line; this line is marking a pattern of
intense workouts, followed by recovery sessions, on a weekly basis.

What
is more informative is the pattern described by the red—the chronic—line
in that accumulated training stress has been gradually increasing since
the beginning of November.Based on my annual plan, I
would anticipate that the red/chronic line will continue to rise for the
months of January and February, after which I have scheduled two weeks
of easy to moderate training to prepare for my next macrocycle.As
I accumulate more data as the season progresses, the peaks and valleys
of these initial curves will flatten, making it even easier to track
long-term trends.

ConclusionA good coach will help you collect and interpret data associated with your training sessions.It
is not enough to gather lots of information; it is important to both
collect data that will be useful, and carefully analyze the data on a
regular basis within the context of your short and long-term goals.

Vmps
Computrainer Classes

Group Computrainer classes are
probably the most effective way to train for cycling, especially when they are
designed by Don Vescio, a US Cycling Certified Coach and a world class time
trialist. Check out the expanded winter class schedule, and train smart on the
bike this winter so you can 'ride like Don' this summer.

Race
Highlight: Wrentham Duathlon

A perennial favorite, the Wrentham
Duathlon is this region's multisport season opener. With its festive atmosphere
and carefully planned race course, this professionally organized event is a
wonderful way to kick off your race season.